Twitter Buys Trendrr

Twitter has acquired Trendrr, a five-year-old firm based in New York that specializes in tracking TV-focused social media activity and counts clients such as ABC, MTV, Telemundo and Univision, for an undisclosed sum.

Twitter’s acquisition of Trendrr, which tracks Twitter as well as Facebook traffic, comes about eight months after Twitter inked a multiyear partnership with Nielsen aimed at delivering a syndicated-standard metric to measure social TV audiences billed as the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating.” Twitter and Nielsen originally targeted a commercial rollout for the fall 2013/2014 TV season.

“Having sat at this intersection of TV and social media for years, we’ve analyzed data from lots of platforms,” Trendrr CEO and former Sony Music USA exec Mark Ghuneim said in a blog post announcing the deal. “What makes Twitter uniquely compelling among these platforms is its connection to the live moment — people sharing what’s happening, when it’s happening, to the world. We think we can help amplify even stronger the power of that connection to the moment inside of Twitter.”

He said Curatorr, Trendrr’s Twitter-certified product, will work with media companies, marketers and “display ecosystem partners” and help to continue the pursuit of Trendrr’s “initial charter of focusing on the real-time aspects of TV and media.”

“We intend to honor existing partner contracts for Trendrr.TV but we do not plan to establish new ones going forward,” Ghuneim added.